A couple years ago, I offered a Moticise workshop on Money & Career at a special event for entrepreneurs here in New York. In it, we did the Wheel of Life, an activity that gives people a new perspective on what areas in their life need work.

In the Wheel of Life, you color in each area of your life to the extent that you feel it's going well. If you're feeling good about your spirituality, you might color it in all the way; but if you're having trouble with your health, you might leave it blank, or only color it in a little bit.

After the group colored in their Wheel, I asked them to talk about their Money and Career slices. "Why did you color it in the amount that you did?" I asked.

A woman named Taylor spoke first. She'd introduced herself as a realtor who had recently ventured out on her own, and she said, "You know what's funny? My Money and Careers sections are way lower than I thought they would be."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"I thought those areas were going well, but...

Last week, I heard from "Gina," an old client I'd lost touch with years ago. Gina wanted to meet for coffee, and so we met at a vegan café on the Upper West Side.

"I wanted to thank you in person," she said as we sat down.

"For what?" I asked. I'd only coached her for one session before she moved, so I didn't know if I'd had a real effect on her.

"It was you who first encouraged me to start exercising," she said, "and that has changed my life – my work, my mind, my emotions. Everything."

Then she told me her story.

When we'd first met, Gina was struggling. She loved her work as a research professor, but she felt she was missing out on pretty much everything else: friends, family, romance, her mental and physical health. Lately, she'd been feeling tired and foggy, and was having a hard time focusing.

I know what it's like to not be able to focus! When she told me that, back in our first coaching session, my first question was this: "Are you exercising?"

"Ha!" she had...

Recently, I came across this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr: "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase."

That hit home for me, because right now, I'm looking up at a brand new staircase in my business: opening a Moticise space here in New York City.

This idea has been in the works for a few months now. It will be a place where people can come to find their core, then manifest it – through coaching, Moticise classes, meditation, special events, retreats, and eventually nutrition. This space is truly the summation of all my passions: mindset, fitness, and bringing people together to reach their goals.

But no sooner had I decided to go for it when the fears set it.

Instead of being excited, I was paralyzed. I worried that being afraid meant something was wrong. For weeks, that fear plagued me. I was so afraid to make the wrong move that I all but stopped moving at all.

One night, I had trouble sleeping. I tossed and turned, dwelling on all...

Once, when my daughter Kaya was younger, we were at a restaurant that had those placemats with games and activities for kids. She was doing mazes, and when I looked over, I saw she'd gone through three of them without making a mistake. Not a single dead end.

"Wow, you're good at mazes," I said. "How did you do that?"

She just shrugged. "Easy. You start at the end, and go backwards."                 

Stephen nodded, like she'd just said something profound. "That's how those things are designed. They trip you up if you go forward, but going backwards, the path is clear." 

That's how it hit me: going backwards is a big way to move forward. 

As soon as I thought it, I started seeing examples everywhere. Stephen does it all the time, so I didn't have to look far. When he wants something, he'll imagine that it's already happened. He'll get really clear on what that looks and feels like to have...

The other day, I ran into an old friend from college, Amber. She and I had kept in touch only sporadically, and last I’d heard she was living in England, so it was a total surprise to pass her on a sidewalk in Lower Manhattan.

We made plans for lunch, and when I saw her next, we got to talking. She told me about her fashion design business, her kids, her favorite places to travel. At one point, I said, “Amber, you seem like such a different person than how I knew you in college.”

I remembered her as being timid—kind, sweet, fun, but not particularly ambitious. The woman across from me was empowered, bold, confident.

She laughed. “I am,” she said. “I could not be more different. You knew the ‘old’ me.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Growing up, I had terrible anxiety,” she said. “Every little thing triggered an enormous stress response. Homework, making lunch, doing chores – whenever someone asked me...

The other day, a friend and I got to talking about rituals – specifically, about how successful people all seem to have them. They exercise, meditate, drink tea or green juice, journal – often at the same time every day.

“What are your rituals?” she asked me, and at first, I felt sheepish. I couldn’t think of any.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I exercise, I juice, I journal – but they don’t feel like rituals. My days are so different, it’s hard to keep any kind of consistency.”

“Well, that’s okay,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have any rituals. What’s something you do every day that helps you keep a strong mindset?”

I thought about it, and the only thing I could come up with was this: every morning, before anyone else is awake, I get up and have my coffee. It’s my one moment of peace and quiet – the calm before the storm. During those...

I read an article once where Sigourney Weaver told about a time she was in an acting class. Looking around, she thought, “I feel so sorry for all these people. They’re not going to make it, and I am.”

Soon after I read that, I was in an acting class myself, and I sure as hell did not feel that way. But, I admired the strength and confidence she must have had, to believe that. I didn’t think she said it in a mean way – it wasn’t like “They suck and I’m awesome.” It was just a belief she had, a sense of certainty that she’d succeed. And she was right. (I’m guessing the rest of the group didn’t all go on to win Oscars).

But that day in my own class, I looked around and thought, Wow, these people are so talented. How on earth am I ever going to make it?

And that troubled me. I knew that if that was the belief I carried around me, my results would reflect that. So I made a conscious effort to change my...

For years, I’ve wanted to climb Kilimanjaro.

I love hiking. I grew up doing it with my mom and sisters. Isabel and I climbed Mount Whitney, which is the highest peak in the continental US, and my mom and I climbed Mount Washington, which is the highest on the eastern seaboard. She and I also climbed the two highest mountains in Norway. Basically, if there’s a peak, I want to climb it.

But I’ve never done any of the really big ones. So this year, for my birthday, I decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Stephen said I could go, as long as he didn’t have to. So I rallied my sisters, one of whom has always wanted to do it, and one of whom is reluctant (although optimistic – she was the first person to buy boots and a backpack).

As I began preparing, reading books, studying the trails – we’re going to do the longest one – I started to get scared. I was learning that the trail isn’t what gets people, but the altitude. I started...